After I posted the progress update on the Moments Journal project a couple of weeks ago, I realised that I was at a point where I need to start thinking about whether the messages I was sharing about it made sense and were what I really wanted to say about not only the journal as a physical object, but also how the process of using it has impacted my life over the last few months. So that’s where I’m going today - back to the beginning.

What actually are Moments?

I already had a sense of what moments are to me personally, but sometimes it’s not that easy to put into words something that is more about the feeling, or quite intuitive and instinctual. So I did what I often do when I want to find out the meaning or definition and hit the dictionaries (it's not just me who finds this kind of thing fun, right?), and there was the answer.

Well OK, there were quite a lot of answers, but that’s because there rarely is one simple definition, but I quite enjoy sifting through the different descriptions to find the bits that resonate for me. In the case of Moments, what stuck out was:

An unspecified portion of time

Something of significance or value

That was what I'd been looking for to help explain why I'm so passionate about creating this journal and sharing why it's worked for me so that it can help you too.

I’ll tackle the second part in another post soon, but let’s deal with moments as unspecified portions of time first.

I bet if you asked a lot of people how long a moment was they’d probably say a few seconds, maybe a minute. But if you allow ‘unspecified’ into the equation, things get more interesting, and introduce more possibilities and spaciousness.

A moment as I want to propose it for the journal is more about mindfully and gratefully experiencing whatever it is in as much depth and with as many details captured as possible, being so fully immersed and aware that time doesn’t really have meaning.

So a moment could be the split second you see a shooting star, the few moments you spend outside first thing in the morning, that afternoon exploring a museum full of fascinating things, your wedding day, or the week you spent somewhere so utterly mesmerising you don’t want to forget a second of it.

(Moments in Paris - photos my own)

On a more everyday level, you could take a moment to be grateful for your comfy bed, the meal you’ve prepared, the job you love. Or a moment to appreciate the colours you see in your neighbourhood, a moment of pride at achieving everything on your To Do list for the day, the moments you spent on your creative hobby at the weekend.

It’s these little snapshots throughout the day that are a key part of what the Moments Journal allows you to capture and savour, and it really doesn’t matter how much time they take as long as you take the time to notice them. Even if there have been big things go wrong, or you’ve spent the day dealing with overthinking or uncomfortable emotions, or even on the days when it seems like nothing much has happened at all, I believe there will still be things that you can pick out that are positive and important to you in some way.

That’s the second part of the meaning of moments - the significance or value they hold - but more on that next time.

For now, I’d love to hear about a moment from today (whenever you’re reading this) that’s a memory you want to treasure. It doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s something that’s stuck in your mind then it counts.